My journey through shadows and back again to mental health in words and images.

Tag Archives: Light

The holidays are over, now we’re well into starting the new 2018. There were some moments of joy, sharing with a few friends and my closest relatives, for which I should be thankful.

In the latest weeks though my issues with depression and to some degree with anxiety have not been lucky at all, it has really struck me down very hard. As of today, I feel very weak, and not much in the like of eating, exercising or doing other things, in fact I do feel the holidays are: OVER, BACK TO REALITY.

In that mood for this new year I’ve made no resolutions, no goals list, all I hope for, all I really wish is that my mental health issues get better, and my photography projects get more on the nice path. I hope I will get to feel better, and then I’ll have time and energy to think about some nice resolutions. First I must gain some of the weight I’ve lost between December 31 and today:

Not bad for a guy 1.75 meters tall, not good at all either.

Next, my visual interpretation of that return to reality, after some moments of light a few days ago:

With all of this aside, I do wish you a very bright 2018 full of inner peace, health and success!!

Among darkness the light shines brighter. During the past few weeks I didn’t make much connection with the Christmas spirit, inside some of the bitter cold that have left the hard times I went through several weeks repeatedly along the year was still very much present in my soul and, though feeling that way is something I don’t like at all, it was a fact, and not a lot to do about it.

A few days ago a really dearest person invited me to go to a Mexican posada, a festive gathering to celebrate the journey of Virgin Mary and Jose to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. The songs, the breaking of the piñata, the lights, those bright and sparkling lights burning… I started to feel some very nice joy, a very warm, enjoyable joy. All of that united to get myself , my soul, my heart, into the vibe of the season.

May this holiday season, whatever you believe in, bring a lot of warmth to you and your beloved ones’s lives.

Green traces of life emerging from the dead remains on the forest ground, in the like of which my mind and soul come out sometimes from obscurity to shine for a little while.

Finding scenes like this in Nature remind me of Life’s abilities to keep renovating itself one time after another. It also tells me that it’s possible to find light even in darker places, light that allows me to keep on going ahead through the deepest and most light deprived stages of my inward journey.

When images are more than just pretty pictures, and say more than a lot of words.

Don’t you get excited when you or some of your relatives appear on TV??

Well, the following image means a lot to me, it’s my third contribution in the online gallery of the Broken Light Collective!! Let me tell you about it!!

Broken Light Collective is a nonprofit organisation founded in 2012 by Danielle Hark, that strives to create safe and accepting environments where photographers of all levels who are affected by mental health challenges can display their work, as well as inspire one another to keep going and keep creating, despite the dark or scary places in which they may find themselves. The work of the collective is of trascendental importance towards fighting the stigma commonly associated with mental health issues and all the lack of understanding that surrounds it.

I’ve been very lucky to have found about this community and get in touch with it, it has made me understand my own situation a little more and look at it from a not so dark a perspective, and helped me to lighten the heavy load of the deep loneliness and suffering I have been immersed into. I feel honoured that my work in images and words has already been featured in the online gallery three times until these day!! It really is so valuable for me to share part of myself with the other members who walk along similar paths.

Here I share my three first entries that are already on Broken Light’s online gallery:

If there’s anything else I can say is that I’m so grateful with Danielle and all the team at Broken Light Collective for making me part of the community and sharing my thoughts, feelings and photographic work, it represents such an honest support for me!!

To find more about Broken Light Collective’s work and the contributions of the members please visit their website.

Last year is gone, for good or wrong right?. Now a new chance unveils in front of us. 2016 had some good things about it, and for me some not so good. In fact it also brought to my life some things I definitely want to get rid off, and get a healthier, brighter life.

Now another year has just started, and having photography as my main way of expression the morning of January’s first day I walked for a while looking for some meaningful images. After a while I spotted a small group of little plants shining with a touch of sunlight against a very dark background. To me this image is the one that speaks to me the most, it seemed as if the plants were reaching out into the light, struggling to find their way out from shadow. This 2017 a similar struggle lays in front of me, an hopefully it will take just part of the year.

For me getting up early always or almost always pays off. As a photographer I’ve come to love the delicacies of the first and last lights of the day, warm, soft, the beautiful glow that wraps around all things make those times of day really enjoyable even while not photographing. This feel is also one of the reasons I like so much to go training early in the morning, to breath the fresh air and get rid of the last remains of bed in my body. My cats love to go outside the house too at the first hours of the day, to re-scout the surroundings and check what sort of feline company visited the garden the night before previous to asking for their breakfast.

This image is from the first day I made some photos of my bicycle with my Fuji X100S, in fact they got home almost the same date, back in june 2014, a little more than a year now, and with the camera as a new toy in my hands I was really excited trying to get the hang of it as soon as possible. That morning I decided to make good use of the lovely light and try to get some good images of the bike after doing it both with my Nikon DSLR and my NIkon 1 mirrorless the previous days, so while framing the scene one of my beloved ones entered the scene quietly, I reframed quickly and was lucky to get this instant at the right time. For me it brings back a very nice moment, and makes me think now of a good journey that was starting both with my bike and my camera.

It’s not always needed to go to exotic places to behold scenes like this, waking up and going out early gives a better chance to appreciate the beautiful light of dawn, luckily that morning I had with me my Fuji X100S to capture it.

The rain season brings some really spectacular views of the Sky! This images are from a few weeks ago (tough these kind of clouds can still be seen these days). On a windy afternoon I went outside home with the Fuji X100S and while amazed by the power of Nature I pressed the shutter button a few times. I really enjoyed making use of the power lines in the compositions, and the light that was falling on the street.

Wandering the streets of Mexico City’s downtown is always interesting. Because many of the buildings were built so long ago, even centuries, the long years that have passed through the walls, the floor, the stone, the very air, are evident to the eyes. Right at the time I was leaving one of the restaurants on Regina street I had just walked a few meters towards Isabel la Catolica street when this entrance called my attention so I stopped by to take a look. The light and textures on walls and ceilings, the wet floor and the silence, contrasting with the noisy street outside just behind of me, really gave a special feeling, which made me take out my camera, the Fujifilm X100S, and tried to capture that feeling in an image.

From now on I’ll be posting images resulting from my photographic experiences, born from my never ending desire of pressing the camera shutter button while exploring the nuances of light, form, color, texture or composition, or better yet, a mixture of all of them. In some cases I’ll write about the ideas or feelings that came into mind at the time of making the image or instead, whatever the photograph inspires me afterwards. Hope you enjoy, and please, tell me what you think about in the comments section.